Requiem for the Demise of the Great Vigil of Easter

Easter Vigil   B      April 4, 2015

Ex.14:10 Canticle 8, Ez  36:24-28 Psalm 42:1-7

Rom.6:3-11         Mark 16:1-8

 Lectionary Link

  The practice of the Easter Vigil has gone the way of being like Civil War buffs who like to dress up and re-enact the old battles.  It is a very specialized crowd who like to do this sort of thing and those who do it really get into it.

  The Easter Vigil is observed similarly in contexts where people have the Easter Vigil tradition but for most modern Christians, an actual Vigil is an unbearable liturgical marathon.  The Easter Vigil has given way to Easter Sunday services which are conducted in the mid-morning time slot and can have Easter egg hunts added to them.  A Vigil that greets Easter morning at the midnight hour is not compatible with modern time sensibilities and family schedules, so in the guilt to keep alive the most important liturgy of the ancient church, many of us present the Cliff Notes version of the Vigil or just plain eliminate most of the long readings from the Hebrew Scriptures.  We use the Vigil to get the baptisms "out of the way" so as save time for the Principal Easter Service on Easter day, which is quite ironic since the ancient church regarded the Easter Vigil to be the Principal Service of Easter.

  If there are baptisms for the Vigil one can be assured of more attendance because of extended families being present to witness and support the baptismal candidates.  But if there are no baptisms, most members have to decide on whether to go to two Easter services or just to one during the Easter Day mid-morning hours.

  I am a realist about the practice of the Easter Vigil even as I am kind of sentimental because I remember the celebration of the Easter Vigil in my seminary community where everyone was completely committed to the celebratory event.  (Also attendance was mandatory). But as in many things, what has a very specialized interest in communities of theological geeks, does not have general interest in the lay populace of most parishes.

  We are who we are and the Easter Vigil practice is what it is for us as we on this Eve celebrate the founding event of our very community identity.

  So tonight we keep the skeletal remains of an Easter Vigil alive in hopes that it may one day may have a renewed general relevance to the lives of more people.  Part of the lack of interest in the Vigil has to do with modernity in the society.  We assume general literacy and we assume immediate accessibility to all Christian knowledge through books and Google.  An annual liturgy in an illiterate populace was a really big deal; it is not such a “big deal” for us since we are inundated by all kinds of word events all of the time.  Our learning and catechesis is continuous and on-going and not limited to a climactic event where the only ones who are educated in the community perform the words for a non-literate lay people.  This situation partly has driven the Vigil to be the preference of the few theological geeky specialists and re-enactors.

  But with this disclaimer let us at least seek renewal in the constituting designs of the Vigil.

  First, in darkness we light the new fire for the Paschal Candle and proclaim, “The Light of Christ.”  We admit that the learning process is the continual movement from darkness into light.  Aha! I see! Christ is witness of our Surpassing Selves; Our Surpassing Selves stand before us as the possibility of many more experiences of, “Aha, I see!”  So in the light of Christ, you and I stand hopeful for more future insights.  I can really honestly get excited about new future insights.  Can you?

  Second, we have been constituted by the words of our lives.  Words have formed our identities.  Not all words have been given to us with equal weight and authority.  The biblical words have been given a privileged weight in the formation of our identities.  In the Vigil readings we acknowledge our formation in the great words of our tradition and we join to do it again because we want to promulgate the importance and identity forming power of these words for ourselves and all into the future.

  Third, we intersperse words with the special genre of words which we call prayer.  And the prayers are topical; we seek to invoke God into every corner of our human experience and the offered prayers of the vigil is the practice of the priestliness of the entire church praying  together.

  Fourth, we baptize and we renew baptismal vows.  We acknowledge the specific time and place of our initiation into a tradition of believing that God created us, loves us, forgives us and asks us to love one another.  We gather to acknowledge that we are “recovering” hypocrites.  Why?  Our baptismal values are so high and ideal, we can’t possibility say that we have completed them.  We preach and make vows toward higher values than we have attained.  And so we profess our cheerful “recovering” in our hypocrisy.  We will not give up the difficulty of our attaining of our values even while we know that we are surely failing.

  Fifth, we welcome new members into our fellowship and we give them our best words of value about the meaning of their lives.  We celebrate that the Gospel has succeeded in each generation since the time of Jesus and so even though we are different from people in the past, we share with them the common Christ-humanity with them tonight.

  Sixth, we welcome the day of hope, the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ.  We do it with a banquet meal, called Thanksgiving.  We are Thankful tonight that hope attained such a wonderful narrative in the resurrection of Christ.  We are thankful that we don’t have to “eat” alone.  We are thankful for this banquet meal given to us by Jesus to keep us together as the family of Christ and to be our constant aspiration for the entire world to be able to sit down at a table together in fellowship, with everyone having enough to eat and with everyone celebrating friendship and mutual regard because of the hope of Christ.

   Even though our Easter Vigil seems weak and impaired in our celebration of it, let us not forget the great constituting principles expressed in the Vigil liturgy.  We may escape attending a four hour Easter Vigil liturgy, we cannot escape the wonderful meanings of the Easter Vigil, the chief one being, “Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is Risen Indeed. Alleluia!  Amen.

Sunday School, Easter B

Perhaps there is time along with the Easter Egg hunt to teach children:

Easter Sermons for Children

In this sermon, have the entire congregation, one by one share the Easter Message "Christ is Risen."  Make a baton and write on it the traditions that the church has passed on.  This is to illustrate to the children the transmission of the Easter message for all of these years.

Sermon One: Passing the Baton in the Great Relay Race

   What Christian Feast Day is more important? Christmas or Easter?  They are both very important but Easter is the most important Christian day of the Christian year.  Why?  If Jesus had not come back alive, we would not celebrate Christmas and we would not even exist as a church

  When the resurrection of Christ happened, the friends of Jesus who saw him alive again after his death began to share the story.  And now that story has been share for about 2000 years.  If the church is about 2000 years old, that means that there has been about 100 generations using 20 years as the average length of a generation.  So how has the message of the life, the death and resurrection Jesus been remembered for 2000 years?  By one parent sharing the message with their children and their children share the message with their own children. 

  If we have about 100 people here let us see how long it takes to share the message. One by one, let’s share the message, one time for each generation.  Let’s see how long it takes to say Christ is Risen around this entire gathering.  Okay start.

   But the church has not just passed on spoken message.  We have passed it on in things that we can see and touch and feel.  And so I have made a baton for a relay race and I’ve written some things on the Baton.  The Bible.  The Old Testament Stories.  The New Testament Stories.  Creeds. Holy Spirit. Water of Baptism. Oil of Baptism and Confirmation.  Fire of Baptism.  Bread and Wine of Eucharist.  Prayers for the Sick.  Bishops, Priests, Deacons and Lay Persons.  Marriage Rings.

  These are things of the church that have been shared for 100 generations.  These things have been passed on from family to family for 2000 years.  And that is why we are here today, because someone told us the message about Jesus Christ and because the church has passed on the various things that have helped us to remember that Jesus rose again.  And because the Holy Spirit is inside us giving us the hope that we are going to live beyond our deaths.  And why do we believe that we will live beyond our deaths?  Because Jesus Christ lived beyond his death; he did it to show us what will happen to us after we die.  We will live beyond our death and we will live with God.  That is why this day is such a happy day and it is why we shout: Alleluia!  Christ is Risen!  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!  Amen. 

Sermon Two:  The empty Easter Egg

  Let me tell you today about an Easter Egg hunt that took place on Easter Sunday in a church.  And the Sunday School teacher wanted to teach a lesson to the children on Easter Sunday.  So Mr. Jones during Sunday School on Easter Sunday, said to his class, “Today is Easter Sunday and so we want to do something special.  We are going to have an Easter Egg hunt.  I’ve have already hidden the eggs.  So let’s go outside and look.  And I want each of you to find only one egg.  And when everyone has found one egg, then we will come back to the classroom and each of us will open our egg in front of the entire class.  So the entire class of twelve children ran outside to look for the eggs in a place on the lawn where Mr. Jones had hidden the eggs.  One by one each child found an egg.  One child said, “I’ve found my egg.”  Another child said, “Please help me find my egg.”  And finally after about 10 minutes each child found an egg.  Mr. Jones rang a bell and said, “Come into the classroom.”  And so the children came back into the classroom each holding an egg.  Now these eggs were not real eggs, they were plastic hollow eggs so that there could be a hidden treat inside of the egg.

   When they were seated in the classroom, Mr. Jones said, “Now one by one we are going to open each egg to see what’s in the egg.  And let me tell you, there is a surprise in one of the eggs and whoever has the surprise will get something special.”

  One by one the eggs were opened.  Johnny said, “I have a dollar bill in mine…I bet I won the prize.”  Mary opened hers and she found some very nice chocolates so she said, “No, these are really the best chocolates, so I bet I won the prize.”  Jimmy opened his egg and he had a little Lego man so he said, “I think I got the best prize.”  Grace opened her egg and she had a cute little furry bunny rabbit and she said, “I won!”  Gloria opened her egg and found a silver dollar and she said, “Wow!  I hit the jackpot!”  Jeremy opened his egg and he found a lovely ring that fit his finger and it had a red jewel on it, so he said, “Surely this must be the best prize.”  Betsy then opened her egg and she found a cute little baby chick, and she was thrilled because she knew she had won.  Todd opened his egg and found a shiny whistle and he blew the whistle because he thought he had won.  Everyone who heard the loud noise, said, “Stop blowing the whistle, it hurts our ears.”  Joey opened his egg and he found a little race car…just what he wanted, and so he believed he was the winner.  Margaret opened her egg and she found a cute little teddy bear and she was happy.  Harry opened his Easter Egg and he found a porcelain little Dalmatian.  And he just loved those spotted dogs.  And then there was only one person and one egg left to open and it was Lucy’s egg.  Everyone said, “Hurry and open it let us see.”  But Lucy got very shy and so she hid her egg under desk so that no one could see her open it.  She looked down as she opened it and when she got it opened, her face turned red and said.  Everyone shouted, “What did you get Lucy?  Did you win?  What did you get?”  And Lucy looked up and said, “I lost…I did not get anything…my egg is empty.”  And the children laughed at her and said, “Mr. Jones really played a joke on you.”

  Then the children asked Mr. Jones, “Tell who won the best prize?”

 And Mr. Jones said, “Children, Lucy won the best prize and so she get this special prize, a new Bible.”  The children said, “Why did Lucy win?  Her egg was empty?”

  Mr. Jones said, “Today is Easter.  And when the women went to the tomb of Jesus what did they find?”  They found that the tomb was empty and because it was empty they were winners, because that meant that Jesus was still alive.

  And so Lucy’s egg was empty.  And she wins the prize on Easter to remind us that the empty tomb of Jesus means that Christ is alive and that he is still with us today. 

   So as winners today let us be happy about the empty tomb of Jesus.  Let us say, Alleluia, Christ is Risen.  The Lord is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

Meanings of the Last Words of Jesus

Good Friday    April 3, 2015         

Gen 22:1-18        Ps 22

Heb.10:1-25        John 18:1-19:37

 Lectionary Link

   Ponder in our lifetime when we have had to partake of the sudden and unfortunate violent deaths of people who had an impact on the society at large.  Some of us are old enough to remember the deaths of JFK, Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Because these deaths occurred we assumed that there were people in our society who did not want these people around.  The deaths of these people made us think about the stability of our society to be able to continue to function without instigating a wider break down of law and order in our society.  These deaths were profound deaths for us because we sort of  thought that we were a bit more civilized than the rest of the world.  How could such things happen in our country where we supposedly used our system of laws, our legal system and our freedom to vote to resolve any disagreements which we might have with each other?

  On this day, we ponder the death of Jesus.  We know that the death of Jesus did not have much immediate impact upon the Roman Empire.  In the reports of Roman historians, there is but a scant reference to Jesus of Nazareth.  The Jewish historian Josephus who has been highly re-edited by later readers, does tell about the life of Jesus but the death of Jesus was mainly an event which was most poignantly felt by a relatively small group of his disciples.

  One wonders how such a death which impacted such a small group of people has come to be the most commemorated death of all time.  Why do we still commemorate the death of Jesus today?

  I believe that the life of Jesus was so unique and that his impact upon people was so profound that the grief of his death created the powerful conditions for his reappearance in his post-resurrection life.  He was so profoundly unique that his death could not take Him out the lives of his followers and He has remained forever.  The Roman Empire which gave a dismissive yawn at his death was taken over by the appearances of the Risen Christ in the lives of so many in the Roman Empire that by the time Constantine ascended to be the Caesar of the Empire, he had to recognize that the Risen Christ was the King and Caesar in the hearts of most of his Empire.

  As we live in the aftermath of the success of the continuing post-resurrection appearances of the Risen Christ throughout the world and in our lives, we still cannot minimize the profundity of the death of Jesus on the Cross.  We cannot minimize the deaths of people in our lives and the profound losses which are experienced by so many people each day in our world.

  Our belief and experience of the resurrection appearances of the Risen Christ cannot give us such a resurrection pride that we lose the capacity for empathy and for deeply feeling death and loss in our lives.

  This is why Good Friday must be observed.  Death and loss cannot be minimized or trivialized.  We cannot rush to a spiritualized existence and deny the importance of how good and right and necessary it is for us to be in our bodies comprised by five senses and memories and the loving ability to attach ourselves to favorite people who are very difficult to lose accessibility to.

  We gather today to honor death and loss, because we are made to be people who deeply feel love for one another and for the beautiful earthly home.  If God so loved the world, then some of that love for our world and people in our world has been so profoundly shared, that when we lose what we love, we know a profound grief and this grief must have a Holy Day.  Good Friday is such a Holy Day; it is as it were, the Funeral of all Funerals.

  At a funeral, one tries to appreciate the meaning of the person that one has gathered to memorialize.

  All Four Gospels memorialize the suffering and the death of Jesus on the cross.  This re-visiting of his death is done differently by each Gospel community who wrote about it.  From the Gospel communities we have a collection of the seven last words of Christ.  These words which are projected upon the dying Jesus on the Cross give us an indication of the meanings of his death and life.  And so we ponder the meanings of how the writers of Passion Gospels understood the last words of Jesus.

   The First Words of Jesus from the Cross:  Jesus said, "Father Forgive them, for they do not what they are doing."  Jesus could offer forgiveness because of human ignorance.   If God is the smartest of all; everyone else is but ignorant in comparison.  And so human acts are often driven and motivated by “not knowing.”  If the citizenry knew that they were killing the son of their beloved king, would they do it?  Today as we ask for forgiveness for our ignorance, we also ask for wisdom for ourselves and for the people of this world to learn how to practice God’s love and justice.

   The second Word of Jesus from the Cross: "Jesus said to the second thief who repented: Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."   Paradise sounds like a pretty comfortable place for someone who has been convicted to die for his criminal activity.  But the point is this: Jesus was not rewarding crime; he was rewarding repentance.  Repentance creates paradise.  Repentance is evidence that our hearts are turned toward God.  And that turning of our heart is the very conditions for paradise.  Paradise is more a condition of the heart than a place.  Repentance makes each of us a place that can be called “Paradise.”

   The Third Word of Jesus from the Cross: When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, "Women, behold your Son?  And he said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!"  One can imagine that the life of Jesus was hardest on his mother Mary.  He was called mad, crazy, demon possessed, a winebibber, a law breaker and much worse.  For his ministry, he was convicted as a criminal in the horrendous method of capital punishment.  The religious authorities approved of his death.  How could Mary be proud of her son?  How could Jesus be a responsible son, if his trouble did not allow him to stay around and take care of his mother?  From the cross we see that Jesus is proclaiming a new kind of community; one that went beyond flesh and blood.  When he asked his mother to accept his disciple friend as her son; and when he asked his disciple friend to accept Mary as his mother, he was instituting the reality of the family of the Spirit where sons and daughters were not born just of flesh and blood but of God.

    The Fourth Word of Jesus from the Cross: And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, Lama sabachthani."  which means, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"   In some of the Passion accounts, Jesus does not sound so confident and in control, like he appears to be in the writings of John’s Gospel.  In these words, Jesus is God’s Son but he feels forsaken by his Father.  Certainly there are many occasions in the history of humanity when it has seemed that God has forsaken people in events of pain, loss and tragedy.  In these times we are not so sure we really wanted God to grant such radical freedom in this world for such negative events to occur.  But these events are the consequence of the radical freedom that exists in the world.  And even God’s Son and God the Father bear the consequences of such radical freedom.  And it means God suffers with us in our suffering.

     The Fifth Word of Jesus from the Cross: Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, "I thirst."   We need water to live.  The flogging, the bleeding and sweating, had not only made Jesus weak and anemic, it also made him dehydrated.  He desired life.  He desired to replenish his fluids.  Indeed, wanting life to the very end, is a most human impulse.  Certainly we respect the one near death, who truly wants to live.  If death and the afterlife were so inviting, why would we bother to stay here?  There must be an important value about wanting life until it is taken out of our hands.

   The Sixth Word of Jesus from the Cross: When Jesus had received the vinegar, he said, "It is finished."  'No it is not finished Jesus.  You needed to stay around longer and teach us more and befriend us more.  You died before your time!  How can you say that your life work is finished at the age of 33?"   If Jesus had lived longer, his followers would have been so dependent upon his  physical divine presence, they never would have awakened to the divine presence within themselves and to their own identity as sons and daughters of God.  In this sense, Jesus knew that he was finished; he died out of this world in order to be reborn into this world and not just within one body but within the lives of everyone who wants the presence of Christ.

  The Seventh Word of Jesus from the Cross: Then Jesus crying with a loud voice, said, "Father unto thy hands, I commit my spirit."  Jesus faced the same dilemma that all will face in death.  We cannot fulfill the task of the ultimate preservation of our lives.  God the Father creator, is the One who must recreate our lives again in a new way.  Jesus had faith in the One who could recreate and preserve his life in a way that his followers could not.  Committing our spirit to God is the last act of our lives, and believing in God’s ability to preserve is our faith in the resurrection.

  As we contemplate the passion of Jesus Christ today, let us be thankful that through his death, we can value living.  And through his death we are invited to live better to finish the purpose of our lives on this earth.  Amen.